Over the last few months, I have seen and heard about lots of different systems for finishing cattle.

It is always good to compare and contrast, especially against enterprises that are easily managed.

One particular farm in Wales had everything worked out very well.

The farmer finishes over 1,000 cattle per year and is able to grow all his own feed (barley, wheat, and peas) which makes everything straightforward.

He buys in all his stores for finishing, so cattle are kept in uniform batches, and he can mix up a feed to suit the various stages.

In practice, he has large groups of cattle on the same diet. If an animal is underperforming, it goes back to the mart. It is a very simple system and he can manage it with very little help.

While I was very impressed with what he was doing, it is not something that I would be able to replicate.

He has no shortage of good quality land and the weather conditions allow him to do a lot of things that I cannot do (like growing cereals).

My finishing system is a lot smaller and a lot more complicated.

Profitable

I am finishing continental bulls, Angus steers and heifers as well as cull cows and a few continental heifers.

I have small groups and there is no way that one feed will suit everything.

I have a different feeding regime for each group of stock.

Down through the years I have tried to tinker with my feeding policy to make it as profitable as possible.

It is not easy, and it is definitely not simple. I have meal bin storage for two different types of concentrate.

Young stock

One bin is filled with a growing ration which has about 16% protein, while the other has a finishing ration with about 12% protein.

This approach has worked reasonably well.The growing ration suits all types of young stock. With these animals I am just looking to grow frame, and I can adjust the level of concentrate feeding depending on the silage quality and the required growth rate.

I weigh the cattle regularly and I have target weight gains for each group of cattle.

If I am not reaching that then a change is made to feed levels.

It is much easier to manage this when the cattle are housed as this takes a lot of the variables out of the system (you don’t have weather affecting grass quality and intakes).

Finishing cattle

My finishing cattle have proved to be more of a challenge. Each group of stock requires a different feeding regime.

Cull cows are the most straightforward – I feed them well on a low protein diet for 60 days and then sell them.

The Angus steers and heifers are completely different.

I feed the steers about 7kg/head/day for the last 90 days of a finishing ration along with good quality silage ad-lib. This seems to work well here.

Young bulls

The Angus heifers get 4kg to 5kg/head/day for the last 70 to 80 days of the finishing ration along with good quality silage. Any longer than this and they are inclined to get over fat.

My main issue has been with continental bulls. I have no problem at the growing stage, when they are fed low levels of my growing ration along with ad-lib silage.

This grows a good frame in preparation for the finishing period.

I aim for a 100-day finishing period so when I get them to about 530kg I move them onto a finishing diet.

A few years ago, I finished the bulls on ad-lib meal and straw.

While the bulls did really well, it worked out very expensive per head.

So I have changed to 8kg of my finishing ration and good quality silage.

I have found this to be the most economical way to finish the bulls, although, there has been one slight problem in that I am not 100% happy with the fat cover.

So after discussions with farmers and advisers I have decided to add extra maize to the diet.

However, I don’t want to change the finishing ration, so I have had to buy a bulk bag of maize and add it to the feed for the bulls only.

I have seen no improvement in weight gain, but I am hopeful that when I kill the bulls in the next couple of weeks, there will be an improvement in fat cover.

My system seems to be getting more complicated all the time, but with margins so tight, we all need to be making improvements wherever possible.